James Clapper: U.S. Intel Community ‘Legitimately Angry’ at Hillary Clinton’s Email Misuse

NEW YORK — In his recently released book, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper concedes that if an average U.S. intelligence employee had committed the same acts that Hillary Clinton did with her private email use the consequence would likely have been proceedings about whether to terminate that employee.

Clapper also revealed he was aware that “many members” of the Intelligence Community (IC) were “legitimately angry” at Clinton’s use of her private server. He described those members as feeling Clinton “had so carelessly mishandled classified information, putting sources and methods in jeopardy, and they didn’t understand how she could become president after she’d done something that likely would have cost them their clearances and jobs.”

In the book, titled, Facts and Fears: Hard Truths from a Life in Intelligence, Clapper recalled his thoughts watching then-FBI Director James Comey hold his infamous July 5, 2016 press conference at which Comey criticized Clinton’s private email server as “extremely careless” before finally stating that “no charges are appropriate in this case.”

Clapper said that by the time of the press conference, he had personally reviewed Clinton’s emails in question and came to his own conclusions.

He says his own review found that “none of them was sent to or from anyone outside of government, and none was marked in a way that would indicate it was classified, but several did discuss sensitive intelligence sourcing that shouldn’t have been transmitted across open internet connections, where they could be intercepted by an adversary.”

Clapper writes that a line IC (Intelligence Community) employee would have faced profound consequences for the same actions: “Secretary Clinton hadn’t intentionally disclosed secrets, as CIA director Petraeus had done, but I was surprised that she’d participated in email conversations about such sensitive information. If a line IC employee had done the same, I expect we would have held proceedings to decide if that person should keep his or her security clearance and continue employment.”

Clapper wrote about IC members being “legitimately angry” at Clinton’s email scandal in the same paragraph he says that others were “worried about Mr. Trump’s erratic statements and tweets.”